Cybercrime Unit to probe SEA 'leak'

The Cybercrime Unit is now assisting with a security breach at the Education Ministry as a confidential document containing information related to the Secondary Entrance Examination (SEA) was leaked and shared across social media.

The document in question contains information on all students who wrote this year’s examination and lists the names of those due to re-sit the exam in 2019.

The Education Ministry is now treating the matter as a serious breach of security.

Permanent Secretary Lenore Baptiste-Simmons said the Ministry is working with the Cybercrime Unit to determine the source of the leak.

Further, she gave the assurance that the Ministry will review its processes and take steps in the future to maintain the list’s security.

In the instance that there is any finding of wrongdoing in the matter, the Minister said disciplinary action will be taken against the guilty party(ies).

Despite Thursday’s leak, however, Garcia said the 2018 SEA exam ran smoothly and was incident-free.

“I am very happy to say that there were no major problems at all with respect to the SEA exam. From the time the students wrote the exam, from the time the scripts were prepared, from the time the scripts were corrected to the time when the results were issued, there were no problems.”

He assured that all processes were followed to ensure the integrity of the exam was maintained.

“We were very pleased to know that perhaps for the very first time, everything was above board. There were absolutely no problems until yesterday,” he said.

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